The disclosures made herein relate to an information recording apparatus which enables scheduling of periodic recording of information such as audio or video.
There has conventionally been available an information recording/reproducing apparatus such as a video tape recorder (VTR), a DVD recorder, or a hard disk recorder which enables scheduled recording of a television broadcast program (television program). In the information recording/reproducing apparatus of this type, a user operates the information recording/reproducing apparatus to set (register) scheduling information containing designation of a recording target channel or a time window in the information recording apparatus (scheduling setting). Then, when the time of starting recording arrives, the information recording/reproducing apparatus is activated based on the scheduling information to automatically record a designated channel program until recording end time. When the recording ends, the scheduling information is automatically deleted.
Television programs include a serial program (such as serial drama) which is broadcast periodically, for example, every day or every week. To deal with recording of such a serial program, an information recording/reproducing apparatus has been developed, which can carry out setting to repeat scheduled recording at a cycle such as every day or every week (repeated scheduled recording setting). In this information recording/reproducing apparatus, once information for repeated scheduled recording setting (hereinafter, referred to as “repeated scheduling information”) is set (registered), the repeated scheduling information is not deleted after execution of one automatic recording operation. The information recording/reproducing apparatus periodically carries out repeated scheduled recording at the set cycle. Thus, the user does not have to carry out cumbersome work such as setting of scheduling information for each broadcasting of the serial program.
The following is a related art to the present invention.    [Patent document 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2004-112622
It is up to user's judgment whether to carry out “one-time (single)” scheduled recording setting or repeated scheduled recording setting as described above. In a situation where the user is not knowledgeable about an operation of the information recoding/reproducing apparatus, the user may know only a single scheduled recording setting method corresponding to a basic operation, and may not know presence of the repeated scheduled recording setting.
The user who only knows the single scheduled recording setting method has had to repeat, in the case of recording and viewing a certain recorded serial program, single scheduled recording setting for each broadcasting time of the serial program. Thereafter, when finding out the presence of the repeated scheduled recording setting, the user has had to cancel the registered single scheduled recording setting to carry out repeated scheduled recording setting anew. This situation has created a possibility of complicating work for the user.
On the other hand, to prevent forgotten recording of a program, execution of repeated scheduled recording setting is effective. Thus, the repeated scheduled recording setting may be employed in initial setting of scheduled recording. However, the repeated scheduled recording setting is valid only as long as the user does not carry out an operation of canceling the registered repeated scheduled recording setting. Consequently, when the user forgets about the repeated scheduled recording setting, unnecessary scheduled recording may be continued, thereby blocking efficient use of a recording area of a recording medium (e.g., hard disk), and causing wasteful power consumption due to the unnecessary scheduled recording.